God Never Promised Us a Rose Garden

​Matthew 11:28-30; John 16:33

Just as we cannot do good works to obtain our salvation, good works won’t guarantee us a pain free life. No where does God promise to take away our trials. In Matt 5:45, Jesus says good will fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. So also, the righteous as well as the unrighteous will experience the consequences of this broken world. Jesus’ audience was primarily the down-trodden, the suffering, the persecuted. He did not promise to take away all their earthly suffering. That was one of the reasons the Pharisees would not accept him as the Messiah. They wanted a Messiah who would take away their suffering and oppression. Jesus promised a “new and different” kind of redemption. This redemption included the promise of eternal life but more than that, it promised to lighten, not remove, but lighten the burdens we carry here on earth. Jesus does this by carrying our load with us and by giving us a peace beyond worldly understanding. 

Questions for further thought:
1. How does it make you feel when you think about God allowing good to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike?
2. How does it make you feel when you think about God allowing the consequences of a broken world to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike? 

​Challenge:  Meditate on Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Now go back and reflect on the above questions again.